This moon’s name came from the herb moss pink, or wild ground phlox, which is one of the earliest widespread flowers of the spring. Other names for this month’s celestial body include the Full Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, and among coastal tribes the Full Fish Moon, because this was the time that the shad swam upstream to spawn.

Tides

High:7:27am/8:52pm

Low:1:42am/2:02pm

Rainfall (measured July 1 – June 30)

This Year:16.22

Last Year:12.94

Normal To Date:21.75

Annual Seasonal Average:23.80

Holidays

National Deep Dish Pizza Day

National Raisin and Spice Bar Day

National Tomb-Sweeping Day/Qing Ming Festival-China

Arbor Day-South Korea

On This Day In …

1614 --- Pocahontas, daughter of the leader of the Powhatan tribe, married English colonist John Rolfe in Virginia.

1621 --- The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, MA, on a return trip to England.

1792 --- George Washington cast the first presidential veto, rejecting a congressional measure for apportioning representatives among the states.

1859 --- Naturalist Charles Darwin sends his publishers the first three chapters of Origin of Species, which will become one of the most influential books ever published. Knowing the fates of scientists who had published radical theories and been ostracized or worse, Darwin held off publishing his theory of natural selection for years. He secretly developed his theory during two decades of surreptitious research following his return from a five-year voyage to South America on the HMS Beagle as the ship's unpaid botanist. Darwin, the privileged and well-connected son of a successful English doctor, had been interested in botany and natural sciences since his boyhood, despite the discouragement of his early teachers. At Cambridge, he found professors and scientists with similar interests and with their help began participating in scientific voyages, including the HMS Beagle's trip. By the time Darwin returned, he had developed an outstanding reputation as a field researcher and scientific writer, based on his many papers and letters dispatched from South America and the Galapagos Islands, which were read at meetings of prominent scientific societies in London. Darwin began publishing studies of zoology and geology as soon as he returned from his voyage, while secretly working on his radical theory of evolution. Meanwhile, he married and had seven children. He finally published The Origin of Species after another scientist began publishing papers with similar ideas. When the book appeared in November 1859, it sold out immediately. By 1872, six editions had been published. It laid the groundwork for modern botany, cellular biology, and genetics.

1895 --- Playwright Oscar Wilde lost his criminal libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry, who had accused the writer of homosexual practices.

1930 --- Mahatma Ghandi defied British law by making salt in India.

1951 --- The climax of the most sensational spy trial in American history is reached when a federal judge sentences Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death for their roles in passing atomic secrets to the Soviets. Although the couple proclaimed their innocence, they died in the electric chair in June 1953. The Rosenbergs were convicted of playing a central role in a spy ring that passed secret data concerning the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union during and immediately after World War II. Their part in the espionage came to light when British physicist Klaus Fuchs was arrested in Great Britain in early 1950. Under questioning, Fuchs admitted that he stole secret documents while he was working on the Manhattan Project—the top-secret U.S. program to build an atomic bomb during World War II. He implicated Harry Gold as a courier who delivered the documents to Soviet agents. Gold was arrested a short time later and informed on David Greenglass, who then pointed the finger at his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Julius was arrested in July and Ethel in August 1950. After a brief trial in March 1951, the Rosenbergs were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. At their sentencing hearing in April, Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman described their crime as "worse than murder" and charged, "By your betrayal you undoubtedly have altered the course of history to the disadvantage of our country." He sentenced them to death. The Rosenbergs and their attorneys continued to plead their innocence, arguing that they were "victims of political hysteria." Humanitarian organizations in the United States and around the world pleaded for leniency, particularly since the Rosenbergs were the parents of two young children. The pleas for special consideration were ignored, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953.

1955 --- Richard J. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago, IL, starting one of the most colorful political careers not only of the Windy City, but anywhere.

1968 --- On the morning after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., city officials in Boston, Massachusetts, were scrambling to prepare for an expected second straight night of violent unrest. Similar preparations were being made in cities across America, including in the nation's capital, where armed units of the regular Army patrolled outside the White House and U.S. Capitol following President Johnson's state-of-emergency declaration. But Boston would be nearly alone among America's major cities in remaining quiet and calm that turbulent Friday night, thanks in large part to one of the least quiet and calm musical performers of all time. On the night of April 5, 1968, James Brown kept the peace in Boston by the sheer force of his music and his personal charisma. Brown's appearance that night at the Boston Garden had been scheduled for months, but it nearly didn't happen. Following a long night of riots and fires in the predominantly black Roxbury and South End sections of the city, Boston's young mayor, Kevin White, gave serious consideration to canceling an event that some feared would bring the same kind of violence into the city's center. The idea that resolved the mayor's dilemma came from a young, African American city councilman name Tom Atkins, who proposed going on with the concert, but finding a way to mount a free, live broadcast of the show in the hopes of keeping most Bostonians at home in front of their TV sets rather than on the streets. The broadcast of Brown's concert had the exact effect it was intended to, as Boston saw less crime that night than would be expected on a perfectly normal Friday in April. There was a moment, however, when it appeared that the plan might backfire. As a handful of young, male fans—most, but not all of them black—began climbing on stage mid-concert, white Boston policemen began forcefully pushing them back. Sensing the volatility of the situation, Brown urged the cops to back away from the stage, then addressed the crowd. "Wait a minute, wait a minute now WAIT!" Brown said. "Step down, now, be a gentleman....Now I asked the police to step back, because I think I can get some respect from my own people." Brown successfully restored order while keeping the police away from the crowd, and continued the successful peacekeeping concert in honor of the slain Dr. King on this day in 1968.

1980 --- In Athens, GA, R.E.M. played their first show when they appeared at St. Mary's Episcopal Church.

1984 --- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers used his patented 12-foot skyhook in the fourth quarter to become the all-time NBA regular season scoring leader this night. He broke the previous mark held by Wilt Chamberlain who had 31,419 points. Kareem broke the scoring record on a pass play from Magic Johnson and with three Utah Jazz players guarding him. The Lakers won, 129-115. (He still holds the career record with with 38,387 points.)

1987 --- Calling it the first launching of a television network in almost 40 years, the FOX Broadcasting Company, under the direction of media and publishing baron Rupert Murdoch started with two Sunday night offerings. OK. Who said one was The Simpsons? “Hey, man, get a life. Not true. Cowabonga, dude!” Thanks, Bart. No, actually, Married......With Children and The Tracey Ullman Show were the beginnings of the FOX lineup.

1994 --- Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) killed himself with a shotgun. He was found three days later.